MD: Repeated noise complaints in one night justified police entry

Police officers acted reasonably in entering defendant’s apartment after repeated rebuffed requests to turn down the music which was bothering the neighbors. Even though nighttime entries require higher justification, defendant’s own actions “‘undermined’ his right to privacy.” The police entered, and he allegedly resisted. Olson v. State, 208 Md. App. 309, 56 A.3d 576 (2012):

Although his Fourth Amendment rights would ordinarily be at their zenith when he is home at night, appellant “undermined” his right to privacy “by projecting loud noises into the neighborhood in the wee hours of the morning, thereby significantly disrupting his neighbors’ peace.” United States v. Rohrig, 98 F.3d 1506, 1521 (6th Cir. 1996). See also State v. Kaltner, 420 N.J. Super. 524, 534 (2011) (“under certain circumstances, a defendant who knowingly exposes one’s home to the public has a ‘lessened expectation of privacy'”) (quoting State v. Henry, 133 N.J. 104, 117 (1993)); Commonwealth v. Orlando, 371 Mass. 732, 735 (1977) (“[A]busive language [which] in some circumstances may constitute protected speech … may be constitutionally proscribed when loudly uttered late at night in a residential neighborhood so that people in the privacy of their homes are unable to avoid the noise.”). Through his own actions, appellant made it impossible to protect his privacy interests “without diminishing his neighbors’ interests in maintaining the privacy of their homes.” Rohrig, 98 F.3d at 1522. Here, “preserving a peaceful community is all the more compelling when balanced against [appellant’s] substantially weakened interest in maintaining the privacy of his home.” Id.

To be sure, it would have been appropriate, and perhaps feasible, for the police to have obtained a warrant soon after they first arrived on the scene in light of appellant’s behavioral history and his expressed intent to continue projecting his music through the night. But appellant should not be rewarded — and the neighborhood penalized — for the extended period of police patience and restraint.